Rep. Mike Rogers Announces Alabama as the Future Home of Space Command

December 27, 2023 TruthUSA

An investigation by the Pentagon’s top watchdog into the Biden administration’s decision to keep U.S. Space Command in Colorado will boost the effort to relocate it to Alabama, House Armed Services Chair Mike Rogers, R-Ala., said on Wednesday, Politico reported.

Rogers who has already vowed to use the next defense policy bill to move the command to his state, as former President Donald Trump had announced would happen in the waning days of his administration, said he expects the review will “say exactly what we think: that [Biden] politically manipulated” the process.

And if that doesn’t work, Rogers said Trump will do it in his second term.

“We’ve got two paths, both of which are good,” Rogers said. “One, the IG — inspector general — can come back and say what we know they’re gonna say, which justifies us going forward with building in Huntsville [Alabama]. And if that [does] not happen, Trump’s gonna be there. He’s going to enforce what the secretary of the Air Force said under his administration and the secretary of the Air Force said under Biden’s administration. That is, Huntsville won the competition … and that’s where it should be and that’s where he’s going to build it.”

The command, which oversees the military’s space assets and the defense of satellites, was reestablished in Colorado Springs in 2019, with the Air Force declaring it would look into finding it a permanent home, which has turned into a bitter, years-long dispute over which state should host the command.

Alabama lawmakers point out that Huntsville outranked Colorado Springs on most of the Air Force’s basing criteria, saying this is evidence the state won the competition fairly.

Colorado lawmakers counter that moving the headquarters across the country is needlessly expensive and disruptive, especially after Space Command head Gen. James Dickinson declared the unit fully operational earlier this month.

“The country has to move on, because space is a contested domain and threats are getting worse,” said Colorado GOP Rep. Doug Lamborn, whose congressional district is now home to Space Command. “So we have to get down to business.”

A spokesperson for Colorado Democrat Sen. John Hickenlooper argued that moving the command after it became fully operational would risk national security, waste taxpayer dollars and bring about an exodus of civilian employees who can’t relocate across the country.

But Alabama representatives have pressed to pause spending to build out a permanent headquarters in Colorado Springs until two independent reviews of the basing decision are finished, Politico reported.

Rogers inserted language in compromise defense legislation that blocks funding to buy, build, plan or design a new Space Command headquarters until after June 2024, when the Pentagon inspector general and the Government Accountability Office have finished reviews into the decision to keep the command in Colorado.

It’s unclear how Rogers and others would legislate to bring the command to Huntsville, but Alabama’s delegation holds many of the major levers of power. Alabama has two seats on the House Appropriations Committee, while Colorado has none.

In addition, Alabama GOP Sens. Tommy Tuberville and Katie Britt sit on the Senate Armed Services and Appropriations committees, respectively, while no Colorado senators are on either panel.

Britt pledged to use her position to fight Biden’s decision, which she argues is “putting his political preferences over our military modernization, readiness and national security.”